by: Brent Smith at the Common Constitutionalist

The aftermath of the Florida school shooting reveals the collective mindset of the left. In today’s podcast I liken them to the Borg collective, popularized in the series, Star Trek, The Next Generation.

I reveal the remarkable similarities of today’s radical leftists to the fictional Borg, where everyone thinks and acts the same – working in lock step to build a Utopian society.

I also discuss the winner (if it holds up) of the Pennsylvania special congressional election, Conor Lamb, who ran as a conservative, but will discover in short order, that he must become part of the leftist Washington collective to survive. read more

By: the Common Constitutionalist

Thank heavens for progressive Hollywood. Otherwise how would we know what to think about our culture, particularly the newest chic cause célèbre du jour, which is the LGBT movement?

Actually, let me reconsider that statement. It doesn’t matter what we think. We will be told by our statist overlords what to think, how to feel, what to accept and what and when to celebrate whatever new human right of their choosing. This of course is always done for our own good.

So, sorry Black and Hispanic actors and actresses – you’ve been displaced. Sure you’re people of color and all, but beyond that, you’re as passé as the rest of us heteros. There’s not much more advantage Hollywood can extract from your oppression, so they are moving on to the new frontier (pardon the pun) of jamming the LGBT agenda down the publics’ throat.

Case in point is the latest big-budget installment of the new Star Trek series of movies. Even if you’re not a Star Trek fan of old, you probably know, or would at least recognize, the actor George Takei who played Hikaru Sulu in the original 1960s television show. Takei has made cameo appearances in numerous television shows – the most recent of note is The Big Bang Theory. read more

Rumors have resurfaced about a device being developed by Google that could act as an interpreter.

Google’s gadget would not be quite as high-tech as those seen in science fiction shows such as Star Trek and The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, but could convert spoken words into another language in real-time through a receiver.

Google’s vice president of Android, Hugo Barra, told The Times the device is an option and more recent developments in its Google Translate software could make it a reality.

Google’s universal translator could work in a similar way to the devices used by Captain Kirk, pictured left played by William Shatner and Bones, played by DeForest Kelley in Star Trek

Alternatively, the device could be fitted to people’s clothes as seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation, pictured. In the show, UT devices were fitted to the communication pins of the crew including Data and Captain Picard

STAR-TREK STYLE TRANSLATORS

The universal translator (UT) was a device used in Star Trek to translate alien languages.

In the early series of Star Trek, the UTs were shaped like tubes.

In Star Trek: Enterprise the UTs looked similar to a flip phone.

In Star Trek: Next Generation, UTs are built into the communication pins on Starfleet uniforms.

Ferengis, including Quark from Deep Space Nine, have implants in their ear from birth.

One exception is the Klingon language, which mostly can’t be translated.

Barra told The Times: ‘We’ve got tons of protoypes of that sort of interaction and I’ve played it every other week to see how much progress we’ve made.’

But he added that the software is still several years away from being ready.

Barra also explained that some translations are ‘near-perfect’, such as English to Portuguese, while others are not.

Universal translation devices were a common feature across the different Star Trek series.

Ensign Hoshi Sato, a communications officer on the Enterprise in Star Trek: Enterprise, uses the translator to invent the linguacode matrix.

By the 24th century, universal translators are built into the communicator pins worn by Starfleet personnel and the Ferengi race wear their universal translators as implants in their ears.

In the Douglas Adam book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, a small fish is inserted into the ear of a person.

It can then read mental frequencies and translate conversations.

Google’s plans first emerged in 2010 when Franz Och, Google’s head of translation services, hinted that speech-to-speech translation should be possible ‘in a few year’s time.’

Google’s Translate app, as well as other apps on the market, can already translate text from one language to another.

They can also translate speech into text, yet they are not capable of converting speech to speech at the moment and voice translation has its limitations.

In the Douglas Adam book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a small fish that acts like an interpreter is inserted into the ear of a person. Dubbed Babel Fish, pictured, it can then read mental frequencies and translate conversations

Ferengis, such as Quark pictured from the TV series Deep Space Nine, are fitted with universal translation devices in their ears at birth

Voice-recognition on the apps and software also needs to be developed because background noise or poor microphones affects the accuracy of the recognition.

Google Translate currently works with 71 languages, but there are around 6,000 languages worldwide leaving the service a little short.

In February last year, Och admitted that any universal translation devices would also need to adapt to its user by ‘learning’ their style of talking.

‘Everyone has a different voice, accent and pitch,’ said Mr Och.

‘But recognition should be effective with mobile phones because by nature they are personal to you.’

Recent developments in the Google Translate software, pictured, could make a universal translation device a reality. Google Translate currently works with 71 languages, but there are around 6,000 languages worldwide leaving the service a little short

Star Trek’s ‘warp drive’ is portrayed as a safe, easy way to travel from galaxy to galaxy, barring occasional hiccups with the dilithium crystals.

But scientists warn that the reality of faster than light drives might be rather different, after simulating what a ‘real’ warp drive might do.

“Any people at the destination would be gamma ray and high energy particle-blasted into oblivion,” claims a new paper by University of Sydney physicists.

However ‘boldly’ Captain Kirk might go, he would arrive at a series of dead, sterilized solar systems and the TV series would have made considerably less interesting viewing.

The physicists analyzed how matter might behave around a theoretical ‘warp drive’ known as an Alcubierre drive.

The simulation found that particles would cluster lethally around the bubble in space-time used to ‘jump’ through space.

The real problems start when the Enterprise hits the brakes.

“The region of space in front of a ship decelerating from superluminal velocity to subluminal velocity is blasted with a concentrated beam of extremely high energy particles,” say the physicists.

The Alcubierre (warp) drive is a theoretical, faster-than-light drive, dreamt up by physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994, where a bubble of ‘negative energy’ around a craft expands space and time behind it, while compressing space in front of it.

The drive could make faster-than-light travel possible, at least in theory. But it now seems that it would also be very unwise.

“Interestingly, the energy burst released upon arriving at the destination does not have an upper limit,” said the University of Sydney’s Brendan McGonigal.

“You can just keep on traveling for longer and longer distances to increase the energy that will be released as much as you like. It’s one of the odd effects of General Relativity.

Unfortunately, even for very short journeys the energy released is so large that you would completely obliterate anything in front of you.”

Since Mankind has yet to unlock the secrets of faster-than-light travel, it might seem odd that ‘serious’ physicists might be researching ‘warp drives’ at all, but the research warns of what COULD happen.

No fear though. Creating a bubble of negative energy is also currently impossible, so we won’t be hitting ‘Warp Factor Ten’ for some time anyway, regardless of the possible consequences.